Water Training
Retrievers are born loving the water, the trainer’s job is to insure
that the trainer doesn’t teach
them not to love it. The best philosophy is to get pup trained on land where
you can control the outcome. After pup is reliable on land, then go to the
water. Basically the main learning requirement for pup in the water is
developing his confidence. If you train pup well on land, and develop his
confidence in the water, then those trained behaviors will operate in the
water.
The easiest water introduction for puppies occurs when you have a whole litter that is seven to eight weeks old and it is summertime. Find part of the lake or pond where the bank gently slopes into the water. Put on your boots or tennis shoes and take the litter of puppies for a walk. Walk them around on land for a while so that they get very warm. Then walk into the water. They will follow you and probably automatically swim without ever missing a stroke. Puppies at this age have a natural inclination to swim and will do it automatically. However, be very careful not to try this in the winter. Putting a small puppy into cold water will simply teach him not to like it.
If pup is born in fall or winter he may be several months
old before you introduce him to the water, or you may have acquired an older
puppy who has missed a young introduction to the water, or you may have
acquired a pup who has had a bad introduction to the water. In any case the
rules for pup’s introduction to water are the same:
Let pup go in at his pace. Reward whatever small piece of behavior that occurs. This is not a test and there is no time limit. If pup sticks one foot in praise him. If he continues to be uneasy in the water, wade in with him. The object of initial water training is to do what is needed for pup to learn that water is fun.
Occasionally you encounter a pup that has missed the age window of activation for the swimming instinct and who has a lot of trouble learning to swim. They keep trying to climb out. They persist in slapping the water with their front feet while their rear feet don’t do much paddling. The solution is to get their front end down which levels them out and they will then swim naturally.
One great trick that helps is the large plastic dummies. These are heavy enough that pup tires more quickly and gets that front end down so that he begins swimming naturally. Another strategy is to wade into the water with pup and gently hold him by the collar while putting an arm under his belly to keep the rear end up. After they’ve made a few strokes in proper level orientation, the swimming instinct will usually kick in.
The training practice that is the most widespread and causes most water problems with retrievers is the practice of training them to not run the bank. Bank running is a natural and desirable trait in a hunting dog.
Field trials have produced the fiction that bank running is bad. This is totally untrue. Natural inclination of dog is to take fastest route. We should listen to Mother Nature and let the dog take the dry route on a retrieve. If you take staying in the water to its logical conclusion, you end up with a hypothermic dog.
The retriever’s ultimate function is to retrieve ducks
in cold water. The longer that retriever stays in the water, the more body
heat he loses, and the fewer retrieves he will be physically able to make,
before he succumbs to hypothermia, which also can and will kill him.
Conversely, the more time he is running on land the more heat he is generating
by the metabolism of his large muscle masses. Thus it is desirable for a
retriever to run the bank wherever possible.
The cardinal rules of water training are:
The most valuable tool for water training is a pocket full of rocks. When pup can’t find the dummy or bird, wait till he looks at you and then throw a rock so it makes a splash near the dummy or bird. The rock throwing will also help pup learn hand signals in the water.
Assuming that the weather is warm enough, start pup on water work after he is steady on double marks on land. Start out with the requirement that he be steady on the water. Pup will have a tendency to be less steady on water because it is generally more exciting to him.
The other factor that makes it difficult for pup to be steady on water is the fact that the trainer can’t walk on water. It is much harder for the trainer to pick up the dummies on water. Water work is where you really need to join in with several friends for joint training sessions. Ideally get three other dogs at the working session so that your dog gets to retrieve only 25% of the falls. Then he will get enough “non-retrieves” to keep him steady.
The other potential tendency on water training is to train pup to hunt a fixed length of retrieve. It is very easy to get in the habit of making all the retrieves the distance that you can throw a dummy. The power of repetition will soon form a strong habit in pup. He will be very good on dummies inside your throwing distance, but he will fail on longer retrieves.
There are several techniques to use to gain greater distance.
1. Use the wind. Work from the side of the lake that puts the wind from your back. Throw 2 or three dummies out in a close bunch. Send pup. During the time he’s retrieving the first, numbers two and three will have been blown out some distance. Similarly, during the time pup is retrieving the second dummy, the third will have drifted a good bit further. This drill will add distance to pup’s retrieving skills.
2. Use a dummy launcher. This tool comes with light, medium, and heavy loads to add distance to the retrieves.
3.
leave pup sitting and walk around the pond to the other side and throw out a
couple of dummies. Walk back and send pup across. You might need to throw him
a short one to establish the right entry spot into the water.
Everybody likes to see a retriever take a long flying leap into the water. However flying leaps are not always healthy for pup. If you hunt in cypress bottoms where there are plenty of cypress knees lurking just beneath the water’s surface, a flying leap water entry can result in a massive puncture wound to the chest. The same applies to many manmade lakes where old tree trunks jut up just below the water’s surface.
The wish to produce a long flying leap water entry sometimes
contributes to an unsteady dog as the easiest way to produce that long flying
leap entry is to rev up pup and send him fast.
The major part of water blinds is getting pup to believe there really is a bird out there even though he didn’t see it fall. You train this in by having pup always be successful when you send him into the water for a blind retrieve.
The key is to start with short blinds pup can readily see floating on the water and then gradually lengthen them. Program pup to expect to find birds and dummies out in the water.
When he’s swimming out after a mark and far enough out
that he won’t hear the splash toss out a short dummy as a blind. After he
returns with the mark, send him for the short blind. Gradually make them
longer. The more dummies he finds out in the water, the more prone he’ll be
to jump in the water and go look even when he has not seen one fall.
Before you try stopping pup in the water, he should be perfect on land. In his early water work, make sure pup is close when you blow the whistle. His control distance is much shorter in the water than on land. Keep a pocket full of rocks handy. Then by throwing a rock, you can insure that he is successful in getting the blind retrieve in one or two casts.
The key to training pup to stop on the whistle
consistently in the water is to blow it when pup is likely to stop. During
early training stop him close. Always try and refrain from blowing the whistle
when pup is charging out with great purpose and appears to know where he is
going. Wait until his course starts wavering, showing that he is unsure of his
destination. Then blow the whistle. He will be much more likely to stop.
The general rule for hunting pup in water is to try and make it pleasant and comfortable. Don’t hunt pup in freezing conditions until he’s two years old. Younger dogs are simply not tough and do not stand up to harsh conditions as well as a dog that is a little older.
When you do hunt pup, make sure he has a place to get out of the water. Cold water acts like a heat sink, sucking the body heat out of a dog. Too much time in cold water can make pup hypothermic and can kill him.
The neoprene dog vest is an excellent product to help keep your dog warm on cold hunting trips. This is especially true for dogs that live in the house and thus are not fully acclimatized to cold weather.
Keep pup under control. Whatever you allow him to do is what you are training him to do. If he’s not trained well enough to be fully under control, keep him on a leash.
One of the best training aids is a 4 foot piece of thin plastic-coated wire cable with swivel snap attached to either end. You can get the components at a hardware store or boat supply store. This piece of cable rolls up small and light, so you can keep it in the pocket of your hunting coat. The purpose of the steel in the cable is so that pup doesn’t bite through it. Snap one end to the duck blind and the other to pup’s collar.
One practice that will do wonders for making pup steady plus developing his blind retrieve proficiency is making him wait a good while before retrieving. If the duck you just shot is not crippled and not being carried off by wind or current, then leave it laying where it is. Wait until you’ve shot most or all of your limit before sending pup to retrieve. This practice is an extension of the non-retrieves you give pup in training. This practice will continue to train pup to be steady.
The added dividend of this practice is that it greatly speeds up pup’s proficiency at blind retrieves. If you shoot 6 or 8 ducks or more over a good time period, pup isn’t going to remember exactly where they are. He will know they are out there and thus will readily bail into the water, but he won’t remember the exact location of all of them. He will much more readily look to you for help than when he is immediately sent every time a duck falls.
If pup is not fully proficient on hand signals, a bucket of rocks in the boat or blind will come in very handy. If you can’t get him to go where you want with a hand signal, throw a rock and he will head for the splash.
There is one problem that you should anticipate as pup
gains more hunting experience. Most of the birds that pup retrieves will fall
within 30 to 40 yards. Pup will get in the habit of hunting at that distance,
and may have trouble getting out far enough to retrieve that long sailing bird
that falls at 150 yards. Thus pup’s training should include some water work
on longer retrieves to keep him sharp in that area.
There are several ways to minimize the amount of force to be used in the water training of a field trial dog:
1.
Don’t give pup any shore line birds for first 6 months of pup’s training
career. Judges use shorelines to build the hazards into a test. Every bird a
dog finds on a shoreline trains him to hunt shorelines. He already has an
inherited tendency to hunt shorelines. Don’t reinforce that tendency. In
other words, don’t train in what you have to train out later. The shoreline
is what judges use to make water tests tricky.
For the first six months of his water training pup should find almost
all his water retrieves out in the water well away from any shoreline.
2. No water tests with bank running elements until he’s performing hand signals well. You must have a means to put pup on the desired line in order to train him on bank running tests. Hand signals are the means to put him on the line desired. Thus hand signals are a prerequisite to bank running training. Then you have way to communicate where you want pup to go.
3.
Don’t hunt pup. He will get too many shoreline birds in typical hunting
situations, because most crippled ducks head for the cover of a shoreline. His
inherent tendency to hunt shorelines will be reinforced. He will develop
behavior that will require force to suppress. Notice that I did not say you
can’t hunt a field trial dog. You can hunt a field trial dog. He will
probably do great at hunting. However, you make the field trial dog’s life
much more difficult by hunting him. Hunting produces and reinforces pup’s
tendencies to hunt shorelines and hunt cover. Then force is required to
suppress these behaviors when pup goes back to field trailing.
4.
To build the desired behaviors for a field trial dog, use pup’s natural
inclination to take the same path on repeat performances. Design the test that
you want to train pup on. Then build the right path in small pieces, before
putting it together. Typically is easier to get teach pup a difficult line by
doing it backwards. It is often easier to get pup to come back to you in a
straight line than it is to send him out on a straight line.
Try sitting pup at the
end or fininsh point of the blind retrieve. You go to the starting point and
call him to you. By moving right or left you can adjust and straighten his
return path. Leave him sitting at the starting point and you then let him
watch you go toss a dummy at the end of the line to the blind retrieve. Then
come back to pup at the starting point, and line him up, and send him. He will
tend to take the same route our that he returned on. Thus you can avoid a lot
of the punishment required to do it by trial and error.
After you’ve taught pup a particular water test, he will not forget it. You should take him back periodically and run that test to develop the habit of doing it the field trial way, instead of the way pup’s natural tendencies tell him to do it. A major hurdle in training for field trial water tests is finding the right ponds and lakes to teach pup the different “pictures” of water lines he must learn. To make pup competitive, you will have to teach him to line confidently in a number of complex scenarios.
You must also go to a lot of field trials and see what judges are currently emphasizing. Then train pup to do the current tests. You will also probably have to spend some time with a professional trainer.
Training the water portion of field trial behavior is very complicated and very time consuming. It only has value if you are planning to compete in field trials. Conversely, field trial water training has a negative value for a hunting dog. To win field trials a dog must stay in the water longer. In the typical cold water of duck hunting, the dog that takes the all water route will lose too much body heat to the water, and be greatly limited in the number of retrieves he can make before succumbing to hypothermia.